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In the middle of an otherwise glorious Olympics for British rowing, I stuck my dictaphone under the nose of Graeme Thomas – a stalwart of the British team who has been pulling ergos for at least 15 years.
The ensuing minute or two will stick with me. Thomas – who had just finished fourth for the second time in as many Games – tugged his cap down over his eyes as his voice quavered, and then the two huge oarsmen on his left began welling up as well.
It is hardly news that sport can be cruel, but the sight of these gigantic men trying – and failing – to control their grief was almost unbearably moving.
Even by Olympic standards, rowing must rank as one of the most unforgiving sports. Matthew Aldridge – a bronze medallist in the men’s four – told me that “There’s three of us on the team at the moment that haven’t had some form of cortisone injection yet.”
In many cases, these athletes retire with bones as creaky as Sir Andy Murray’s – and yet their career earnings would barely cover the transport budget for a second-tier tennis event.
So why do they do it? “You turn up every day knowing that you’re going to push yourself in some capacity,” said Freddie Davidson, one of Aldridge’s crew-mates. “That’s addictive. But it’s really, really brutal in other ways. Even on a day-to-day basis, you go through such mental highs and lows in the space of days or hours.”
Brutal. Savage. Gutting. These words have dominated the mixed zones where post-event interviews take place. Since the Olympic cauldron first took flight, British athletes have suffered a whole album’s worth of agonising photo finishes.
Among those whose voices cracked with emotion were Max Whitlock, the greatest gymnast this country has ever produced, and 19-year-old diver Andrea Spendolini-Sirieix. In the windsurfing, Emma Wilson – who suffered an injustice to rank alongside Amber Rutter’s in the skeet shooting – wept and pronounced herself “done with this sport”.
At times, it can feel like these wounded soldiers deserve to be screened from view, rather than shoved in front of a lens at the moment of their greatest torment. “That’s why I hated going into the mixed zone in Tokyo,” said one senior rower, when asked about the suffering of the men’s quad. “All you people waiting there like vultures.”
Yes, it’s a fair cop. We reporters are always looking to pull on the heart-strings. But then, no athlete is obliged to stop on their way past the microphones. And we see a different side of a performer – more human, more intimate – in these moments than we do in triumph.
Take Whitlock. He has performed dozens of sublime routines since taking his first medals at London 2012, and yet I will always remember him for the rawness of his last moments in the interview room, as he processed a fourth-place finish in real time.
Anyone can jump up and down, cry tears of joy, and wave to mum and dad in the stands. But Whitlock swallowed his frustration, analysed his performance, and concluded that “I want to be remembered for what I do next: getting more children into gymnastics”. Here is the measure of the man – a 5ft 6in tumbler whose legacy will stand as tall as that of any British athlete of the past 50 years.
It was a similar story with Thomas, whose likely final interview as an Olympian (he would be a long shot for Los Angeles, as he is 35 already) found him cutting through his own tears to thank his coaches and congratulate the British women’s quad.
Thomas’s name will never resonate like that of Sir Steve Redgrave or Sir Matthew Pinsent, but he has been an endlessly committed member of the British Rowing set-up since 2013: an eternal optimist who exudes energy like a heat lamp.
“It has been quite a big inspiration to us younger guys to see him and his resilience,” said Aldridge of Thomas, whose injury record would fill a filing cabinet. “I know, he hasn’t necessarily achieved what he wanted to out of it, but it’s been incredible to watch.”
In sport, as in life, not everything comes down to a list of accomplishments on Wikipedia. A person’s value cannot be measured in gold.
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